Vicious Wallpaper – Is it out to get us? (Should we hide our kids?)

                Who would ever know that something as generally unmemorable as wallpaper could affect someone so violently?  The short story of The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a well-orchestrated tale where such a simple thing indeed seems to drive the narrator mad.  At first it seems that the color and patterns are just mildly irritating to the normal, but perhaps a little unwell, female speaker of the story.  As pages go by, it is obvious that there is much more behind her disgust towards the paper as it develops into a disturbing antagonist who moves and taunts her in the night.  To me, it seems easy to jump to the idea that what she sees in the walls is in fact a distorted reflection of herself.  The way that the layers of the pattern hold back the creeping woman behind is not unlike the bars on the narrator’s window and the manner in which she is entrapped in the bedroom for what surely feels like eternity.  With no exit, anyone would start to lose their mind.  As the room becomes her only home and the idea of leaving it becomes less and less favorable, she probably begins to fear the outside world.  Thus, seeing the creeping woman out the window is related to her containment and this growing obsession with staying in the room.  I remember hearing cases of solitary confinement prisoners where they would often be sitting in a tiny bare room in pitch blackness for 23 hours a day.  Such an environment can quickly bring someone to insanity.  Of course, the narrator’s cell is a little more pleasant than one of these, but the effect can be very much parallel over time.  It seems pretty incredible that her husband could do such a cruel thing to his wife, yet she is so gone that she only sees it being out of love.  It’s often very hard for people to accept that a particular problem may in fact be psychological and in this case they refused to properly address the situation until it was too late.  The fact that they wouldn’t even say what was really going on and she instead lightly referred to her condition as mere nervousness (a name probably given by her doubtful husband) says a lot about their denial.  Even when there’s what seems to be an end in sight, such as moving out of the house, failing to acknowledge issues like this can potentially be very dangerous.  

Essay Summary: "Under the Granite Outcroppings of Ethan Frome"

                In the one hundred years since Edith Wharton wrote the book Ethan Frome, there have been hundreds of essays written on various aspects of the story.  In a particular essay written by Helen Killoran titled, “Under the Granite Outcroppings of Ethan Frome” she manages to take a pretty different look into the morality of the story compared to many previous critics.  Specifically, this essay contrasts with the views of Lionel Trilling’s “The Morality of Inertia” where, in the same distaste as many other critics, he describes how the book is so terribly immoral he could not teach it in his class.  Helen Killoran disputes that Trilling unfairly only looks at Ethan as not making moral decisions and thus dismisses the book.  The backbone of her argument is that Zeena is the true moral compass of the story and so the book cannot be struck with the title of being a “dead book”.  

With some difficulty at first, after reading her essay I soon found myself agreeing with many of Killoran’s conclusions.  Trilling is indeed false in many of his hurried claims that the book is without morals.  It’s not hard to see how he drew this idea since Wharton does a good job of misdirecting the reader away from Zeena for the most part.  There are many complaints against Zeena but none of them have to do with moral flaws.  While hypochondria may be an inconvenient disorder, it is not necessarily immoral.  Perhaps Killoran’s greatest argument for Zenobia having the strongest morals is her relation to the views of stoicism.  Except for her and Ethan’s one larger quarrel, she always acts in a rational manner.  Zeena is wise to everything going on but as she always has, simply endures until she has chosen, with reason, an exact moment to act.  This is seen when she suddenly demands Mattie be sent home and gets her a train ticket which is not really immoral. 

Killoran uses many examples to convince the reader of Zeena’s morals.  Even if a few ideas seem a bit of a stretch, some are very eye-opening with much sense they make.  Besides that, the sheer volume of suggestions she uses has me certain she is right.  Originally, I thought the length of her essay was a bit of an overkill, but now I see that every word brought up a crucial point in her argument.  Trilling had incorrectly focused his critique of morals on Ethan without seeing Zeena’s incredible potential.  A book with as many lively interpretations as Ethan Frome could never be considered the “dead book” Trilling calls it.  

Shakespeare Sonnet 130

It seems that this sonnet must also be one of the more well known perhaps because of it's peculiarity for the time period.  It's easy to believe that this is a parody of classic Italian sonnets because of the way he takes the over-the-top compliments of corny poetry and turns them into statements of distaste for the Dark Lady.  He describes her in several unpleasant ways.  Her eyes are dull, her breath smells bad, her hair is like wires.  I can't imagine he intends to win her over with such statements.  However, it is only at the couplet that we can maybe see how Shakespeare turns things around.  He claims that his love is still in fact just as great as any who has been spoken of with such ridiculous comparisons.  With this, I think if the lady examines it closely enough she can see the wonderful wit and humanity in Shakespeare's writing.

Shakespeare Sonnet 129

This is the third in the collection known as the "Dark Lady Sonnets" and seems to be pretty different than the past sonnets. It's probably mostly because this was one I studied more extensively that others, but I found it to be one of the most interesting when examined.  The poem almost immediately stands out because of the way the speaker lists descriptions of how he views lust.  This isn't normal for Shakespeare and it is easy to imagine this being a rant that was fueled by an actual event involving the lady.  There are many underlying sexual symbols and tones in this poem to be seen.  Shakespeare keeps bringing up how sex is a terrible thing that you only want while in pursuit but that you later regret.  Looking at this, it's not hard to say that perhaps the pursuit is in fact the best part of what Shakespeare aims to describe.
When this sonnet is compared to others about the dark lady, I think it stands out as one of a few negative, and in this case, almost aggressively so towards the woman.  How is it that in the previous sonnet he was desperate to be a key on her instrument just to feel her fingers, but now he seems disgusted by the idea of such "savage, extreme, rude, cruel" acts?  If the sonnets are indeed arranged in the writers intended order, than this seems rather bipolar on Shakespeare's part.  I suppose love does that kind of thing.

Shakespeare Sonnet 116

In this sonnet, the speaker seems to be explaining the qualities he believes love to carry.  Love is apparently a permanent thing which never dies.  The love must not be true if it can be changed by an alteration of the one beloved.  Shakespeare manages to relate his idea to sailing terms by comparing love to a lighthouse or star in the night sky which guides ships to safety.  It is a guide that takes us through life.
Time is once again personified but in this sonnet seems to claim less power than spoken of before.  Love cannot be battered by Time, it is always there up until the moment of death.  Shakespeare is so confident in this that the couplet seems to challenge that if he were false, then all his writings are wrong and also no one has ever truly loved.

Shakespeare Sonnet 99

It doesn't take long to see that flowers must have been on Shakespeare's mind during the time he wrote this.  Words like violet, lily, roses, and marjoram are all used to apparently compare the man to plant-life.  The lily for example, is "condemned for thy hand".  It's interesting in the sonnet that instead of talking about how lovely the flowers are, the speaker gives them a negative connotation.  He repeatedly calls them robbers and thieves.  The reasoning behind this seems to be that the only way they could have such beauty is by stealing it from the young man.  Certainly with all the great talk flowers get, their pride has swelled too large.  This is the kind of wonderful writing from Shakespeare that probably makes many envious of the subject but is also maybe a little too over the top with its enthusiasm...

Shakespeare Sonnet 73

Sonnet 73 is another one in which Shakespeare uses seasons (in this case autumn) and nature to get his message across.  As we discussed in class, this definitely carries a cautionary tone with it.  While it's one of many to have a sort of "carpe diem" theme to it, number 73 seems to take it a little darker than most.  It seems to me that the sonnets have now begun to lean more away from getting the young man to procreate, but closer to convincing the man to love the speaker as he loves him.  I feel like Shakespeare hints at his own older age and that the boy needs to take advantage of his youth before ending up like him.  In the last line, it's very interesting to imagine "to love that well" as in fact talking about William.  Considering that, the sonnet must be asking the man to love the things he can, before they are lost (such as the speaker!)

Shakespeare Sonnet 55

This sonnet can easily be seen having a connection to the 18th sonnet in its claims of immortality.  He begins by saying how not even great statues of stone will last longer than the young man now that he has been put into these words.  Not even violent war could erase his record from existence.  Shakespeare's writing will preserve the young man so that even if he dies, he'll never be forgotten and can live on in that sense.  The last line seemed to create some controversy over how it should be interpreted.  "You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes."  Some might argue he meant to say that basically wherever there is love, the young man will be reflected.  I like to think that he meant the lovers are the readers of this poem who hear about the man and themselves become infatuated.  Either way, it's interesting to think that Shakespeare could have predicted the future so well to know that people would in fact be reading about this man for centuries to come.

Shakespeare Sonnet 18

This must be one of the most well known sonnets by Shakespeare as I feel like I heard it long before I had any idea what a sonnet really was.  I would probably guess that this is because of the sort of "mushy" love theme of the poem and peoples' tendency to put romance and poetry hand-in-hand.  Up until we starting learning about the sonnets, I probably never would have guessed that the speaker wrote this poem to another man.  However, in the context of the time it wouldn't truly be so odd.  Shakespeare writes, "summer's lease hath all too short a date" which is saying that summer ends quickly, and because of that fact, is suggesting that the subject is better that this season.  The sonnet says with "every fair from fair sometime declines" that every good thing eventually loses what makes it great.  The man, on the other hand, will never lose his greatness like summer does because he will at the least live forever in the words of this very sonnet.
Besides that we don't necessarily know the subject's exact identity, Shakespeare's claim stands true.

Shakespeare Sonnet 12

Sonnet 12 is still carrying the theme of convincing the boy to procreate.  This particular sonnet seems to definitely use a lot of words from nature which is really not all that uncommon for Shakespeare.  The first and second quatrain are talking about the world around him growing old and plants dying and so on.  At line 9 it shifts to specifically the man in subject and how his aging is inevitable.  The only way to fight "Time's scythe" as stated in the couplet is to have children before this personified Time takes you away.  The young man will be missing his opportunity for immortality if he doesn't act soon.  With all the emphasis and effort Shakespeare must have put into these, it's incredible to think the boy wouldn't have heeded his advice by now!

Shakespeare Sonnet 2

The second sonnet kind of expands more on an idea from the first about how he needs to take advantage of his youth and beauty before he loses it to old age.  This sonnet bears a strong sense of negativity towards the aging process and the way it steals the world's loveliness.  The second quatrain seems to ask the question, "Where is all your beauty now that you're old?" and the third quatrain of the sonnet also asks "What could be better than being able to show off your greatness with beautiful offspring?"
The couplet also uses similar contradicting words in the same manner as the first sonnet such as "new made when thou art old" and "blood warm when thou feel'st it cold."  These statements sound like paradoxes at first but make sense when looked at as the man continuing his lineage.  The speaker wants the young man to see the necessity that he have a child which he can see himself in and carry his blood while he begins to grow old.

Shakespeare Sonnet 1

Shakespeare starts the first of the sonnets directed to W.H. apparently attempting to convince the young man to start a family.  The poem begins by saying how people have a desire for beauty in the world.  The next two lines kind of say that the only way for the man to keep his beauty before he grows old and loses it is to continue his bloodline.  One interesting thing about this sonnet is that in a few lines the speaker uses some contradicting words to describe things.  "Famine where abundance lies" and "sweet self too cruel" are all used in the same respective lines which causes a bit of confusion for me.  These lines though are trying to say that the boy is really his own worst enemy and has to take action before he gets too old.  At several points the sonnet is talking about the subject as being too self-concerned and needs to learn to share, and in this case, breed.  "Within thine own bud buriest thy content, and, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding", Shakespeare seems to suggest with this line that the man is being selfish by not having children and in turn spreading his beauty.  He's hoarding his good looks and needs to settle down so the lineage can continue.